"Nutrition Matters." "Juice Heals." Words like these have gotten The Food Heals Podcast censored.

When I received the email, I was gutted. "Prohibited Content," they called it. What???

My name is Allison Melody and I have been censored for talking about vitamins and vegetables.

Let me back up…  I’m a podcaster, a filmmaker, and an author. My business is called Food Heals .

I believe that the body is designed to heal itself when given the tools it needs to do so. 

My passion for nutrition and wellness began because I watched my parents suffer from chronic degenerative diseases and autoimmune conditions. And, by the time I was 25 years old I had lost both of my parents to long heart-wrenching battles with cancer.

This left me more questions than answers and that's when I became passionate about nutrition, vegetables and vitamins and everything we can do naturally to keep ourselves healthy.

In 2015, I launched The Food Heals Podcast, where I interview doctors, nutritionists, patients, experts, anyone with a compelling story to share about the power of nutrition, and the mind, body, spirit connection when it comes to our health.

The Food Heals Podcast gained an engaged following and led me to speaking on stages all across the United States and abroad; it led me to write a book, Food Heals: Physical, Emotional, Spiritual Stories to Nourish Your Soul and Transform Your Health; it led me to host two retreats in Italy; it led me to create courses like Food Freedom, and run masterminds like Food Heals U, and quickly my little dream of helping people get healthy became a full-fledged business. 

I use a software to run the backend of my business. I rely on this software for my day-to-day operations. It  hosts my online courses, it hosts various websites, opt-in pages, sales pages and more. It's where I collect payments from my clients and mastermind students and it's how I email the thousands of people who have opted in to my list to stay up to date with Food Heals.

Two weeks ago, my ability to do business was stopped in its tracks by my own software company. I got an email saying that my ability to email my Food Heals Podcast listeners and anyone who had ever signed up for my email list was being disabled. This means that not only can I not email my list but I can't communicate with my current clients; I can't give away my freebies; people can't join my courses because they won't be emailed a login.

And, it means that I am forbidden by the very software that I pay for to share the message of health and wellness with my audience. An audience of thousands of people that I have built with my own hard work, blood, sweat, and tears for the past 6 and a half years.

I had no idea why I had been shut down because it took 8 days after shutting me down for customer service to respond to me. Turns out I had been censored for talking about vegetables and vitamins.

Here are some direct quotes from the email I received:

Prohibited Content

Kartra may not be used to promote, market, exchange, store or produce offensive, illegal, harassing activities, or business that is likely to be flagged by spam agencies/filters. For this reason, Kartra cannot service content including, but not limited to:

• Products involving unsubstantiated medical claims

Prohibited Actions

Kartra may not be used in connection with any user content that involves, to any degree, any of the following:

• Health claims that have been determined to be false or misleading by a regulatory agency; illegal activities

To continue using the Kartra  platform in general, you will need to make sure that there are no unsubstantiated or misleading medical claims within your content and mentions of specific therapies should be backed up with scientifically peer-reviewed studies from reputable sources as well be very mindful of wording and promises made in the future. 

To say I was shocked was an understatement. They accused me of sending spam emails and making unsubstantiated claims.

I do not send spam emails. Every person on my list has opted in to receive information from me.  Further, they are able to opt out at any time.

I do not make misleading medical claims. I do share emails about episodes of the Food Heals podcast that I have released on topics related to the healing power of nutrition. Many episodes are interviews with board-certified physicians or other well-respected and credentialed health professionals; other episodes include interviews of people sharing their own personal experiences.

These value-add emails are what I have been sending for six and a half years. Nothing has changed about the nature of the content in these emails over that six and a half year period. When using other services such as Active Campaign, I have never had a spam complaint or been censored by them.

The doctors I interview are highly regarded in their field, and are often world-renowned. Examples include Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Michael Greger, Dr. Joel Kahn, Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Marvin Singh, Dr. Garth Davis, and of course Dr. Patrick Vickers – who is named in one of the emails the software flagged – is a doctor helping cancer patients by adding juicing vegetables into their daily regimen. 

And who at - a technology platform – is responsible for deciding what constitutes a so-called “unsubstantiated or misleading medical claim”?  These parameters are too vague to allow me to operate my business without constant fear of censorship. I will continue to share exactly the way that I always have shared – with honesty and a focus to give voice to nutrition-based health practices – and will not be silenced by the software that I pay for.  

Now that I have been censored I realize that it is my mission to speak truth or to power even louder the I ever have before. I will not be silenced.

I'm not Joe Rogan, I'm a small Nashville indie podcaster talking about vitamins and vegetables. If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone.

When my parents died, I vowed to make it my life's mission to shout from the rooftops the body's ability to heal itself when given the tools it needs to do so - so that what happened to them did not have to happen to anyone else. Now that I have been censored, my goal is the same - to not let this happen to anyone else. 

If you support me and the mission of Food Heals, I ask for your donation today.

Your donation will:

1. Help move Food Heals content over to a platform that does support wellness creators

2. Help market the Food Heals Podcast so that it can reach more people

3. Help Indie Podcasters and Creators fight censorship 

I hope you will join the Food Heals revolution!

FAQs:

Why are you raising money?

1. Moving platforms is an extremely costly and time-consuming endeavor. I am raising money to fund the transfer of all my content to a censorship-free platform.

2. Being censored has fired me up to be even louder and reach more people with the message of Food Heals. In order to reach more people, I need to implement aggressive marketing strategies such as buying Podcast player ads and sponsoring other people's podcasts in order to grow my audience and help more people discover the healing power of nutrition.

3. I want to help others not go through the same thing I am going through. I want this campaign to help my fellow indie podcasters who may face censorship for speaking out about what they believe in.

Did they stop you from releasing your podcast?

No, thankfully my podcast is hosted on Libsyn. Libsyn distributes Food Heals to all the podcast players and networks such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio etc. I can still podcast. 

Is this the same thing that happened to Joe Rogan?

What happened to me is different from what happened to Joe, however both are issues of censorship and freedom of speech. In other words, we are both being censored for sharing alternative medical solutions that do not fit in today's media narrative. He interviewed people who had a different view of COVID than the establishment. I interviewed a cancer doctor who helps his  cancer patients with green juice and vegetables. Joe Rogan has an exclusive deal with Spotify and the media is attempting to censor and cancel him. In my case, I am being censored by the software that I use to run my business and communicate with my listeners.

Why cant you sue the software company for violating your right to free speech?

They are a private company and have the right to do what they want. It is why companies like Facebook and Twitter and Instagram can remove accounts that they deem as violating their terms of service. There is nothing I can do but boycott and speak my truth.